Letters: Casinos add up to jobs, jobs, jobs

Casinos adds up to jobs, jobs, jobs
During these difficult times, it is redux part deux, “it’s the economy stupid.” Unemployment has skyrocketed and we have more potential for drastic cuts in public education, public safety and our infrastructure. Western Massachusetts has three priorities: jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
Currently, we have an employer, Mohegan Sun, that wants to build a resort casino in Palmer.
We are in the midst of a blue-collar recession. More than half of the adults residing in Western Massachusetts do not have a four-year college degree and there are not near enough good jobs for them.
We now have an opportunity to put thousands of construction workers back to work while creating thousands of good jobs with benefits.
This job creation allows workers to pay taxes instead of collecting unemployment and to boost the local economy by starting to spend money again.
We are, to date, losing millions of dollars in Western Massachusetts as people travel south to Connecticut to gaming facilities.
Let’s keep that revenue here while also creating good jobs. This infusion of money and jobs can only help revitalize our cash strapped cities and towns and build stronger communities.
Don’t say “no dice” to job creation, revenue enhancement, and a jump start for our region’s economy.
RICHARD M. BROWN
President Pioneer Valley Central Labor Council AFL-CIO
Immigrant workers come with casinos
I can’t understand why the positive attitude toward a casino seems to be increasing in Palmer. What are residents thinking? Maybe they are thinking of jobs, but we know from other locations that casinos typically bring in their own immigrant workers, pay them very little and set them up in overcrowded living conditions.
These workers are not able to buy homes and pay property taxes, but they do send very needy children to the public schools. We also know from other casino locations that traffic and traffic accidents are greatly increased. Crime in the form of housebreaks, hold-up and embezzlement also goes way up which stresses the police force.
Casino owners say that they will cut a person off after he has lost $500 or worked a slot machine for twelve hours. Who will enforce this. If the gambler has more money or other assets to lose, you can be sure the casino wants it.
Maybe they are thinking that 25 percent of the profits will go to state and local taxes and possibly some of that will trickle down to Palmer. Some may trickle, but 75 prcent of the profits will be leaving town in the pockets of the owners. The most disturbing part is that 100 percent of the profits will be coming out of the pockets of the locals.
Casinos don’t make anything. They are purely predatory and suck money of the community.
MALITA BROWN
Wilbraham
Mohegan Sun plan will be asset to area
The Mohegan Sun is proposing a casino in Palmer. It is a good idea.
When debating the proposition of a resort casino, those who are against the concept very frequently use slogans. These slogans are never defined or explained. They are simply buzzwords meant to frighten and mislead. An excellent example is “Predatory Gambling.” An examination and definition of the slogan reveals that it is meaningless in the context of the debate.
The phrase appears to only be used exclusively in anti-gambling sites found on the Internet. There were a large number of these sites but only one offered a definition. Their definition; “Using gambling to prey on human weakness.”
A study of the key verb in their definition will demonstrate how far from reality this group will wander to mislead the public. According to Webster’s Dictionary, “prey” is defined as “to make profit from a victim by swindling.” Again from Webster’s, swindling is defined as “cheating”.
Casinos are carefully regulated by a state gambling commission. Should a casino be caught swindling, cheating, stealing or anything else illegal they would be shut down. If they are shut down it will cost them millions of dollars a day. Knowing that, casino operators are extremely careful to see that they adhere to the gambling commission rules. Casinos make a decent profit by playing fairly. Casino patrons are never forced to gamble, it is always the patrons individual choice. Casinos do not need, nor do they want “human weakness.” Foxwoods Casino “continues to experience hotel occupancy rates at or near 100 percent.” (The Sun.com, Mar. 17). Does anyone honestly believe that people would continue to go to Foxwoods, or any casino, if they knew they were going to be “swindled?”
Predatory gambling is a carefully, cleverly crafted phrase that is empty, and bombastic. Nevertheless, gambling opponents will use the word predatory over, and over and over until you begin to believe it is true. Do not be fooled. Casinos are not predatory by any definition.
JOHN V. KANE
Westfield
Relying on gambling sad day for Bay State
The day that casinos become legal will be a sad day for Massachusetts. Susan Tucker, senator from Lawrence is right on the money when she says, “The numbers just don’t add up.” Too bad no one is listening. The gist of her argument is this: If every dime that went to Connecticut went to Massachusetts, we’d get $93 million. Yet a 10 percent hit in the lottery will cost us $80 million, and an oversight agency to police the industry will cost us $30 million. We’ll lose revenues.
The proposed licensing fees have already dropped from $200 million to $75,000,000 per casino. No state with casinos is doing well. Connecticut and New Jersey have higher taxes than we do. Legislators can add all the amendments they want to make them less predatory (police to look for kids abandoned in cars, clocks, $100 limits on ATMs, $500/day limits, 12 hour a day limits), but these will be gone within three years because they will say they can’t compete. And the state will be so addicted to the revenues that they’ll go along, like Pennsylvania did. This is not even a quick fix. Foxwoods is $2.5 billion in debt, and the competition is growing with New Hampshire aggressively being sold the same song and dance.
This is an addiction business pure and simple. Pennsylvania runs a lab to design slots to be more and more profitable (more addictive). We’re selling our soul to the devil for a pound of flesh. You say we need good jobs? Since when are these good jobs? Forbes Magazine listed even the plum dealer’s job as one of the worst in the country. Bartenders, waitresses and chambermaids were on their list too.
The Republican’s editorial says that we need casinos because our manufacturing has gone abroad and it is not coming back. Either we do something about our trade policies, about giving our manufacturing and technology away to other countries as we did the raw earth, magnet technology that will make China number one in developing and manufacturing green technologies, or we’re doomed.
This is where our unions, our newspapers and our legislators need to be focusing their energy. You cannot support an economy with a service industry that depends on discretionary money and that will force more people into bankruptcy than the jobs it creates. Casinos make their billions from losers. I’m not an economist, but when everyone was singing, “We’re in the money!” during the housing bubble I could see us heading for disaster. You can’t make something from nothing. This is not going to be an economic engine or a road to recovery.
This is a one way trip over the cliff. It is a sucker’s bet. Too bad nice areas like Palmer and Middleboro have to be trashed in the meantime as well cities like Springfield and Worcester which are struggling to attract visitors with restaurants and theaters that cannot compete with casinos.

CHARLOTTE BURNS
Palmer

Casinos destroy fabric of community life
Because I have had firsthand experience living with casinos for 24 years near Atlantic City, I have a clear understanding of the damage they can do to local communities. In New Jersey I worked in the public schools and then as a family therapist, and as I watched the new housing developments chew through the surrounding woods, in my office I heard the stories of the social impacts of casino work.

Casinos are very enticing at the outset and a pretty easy sell for the lobbyists who visit lawmakers. Flashy new buildings are outlined, numbers of building tradesmen employed and number of new jobs created are displayed in graphs, pictures. During a recession, or even during good times, how could anyone vote against this rosy picture?

Everybody agrees that casinos temporarily boost local economies with construction work, but no one would dwell on the disappearance of those jobs once construction stops.

In addition, no one can guarantee that local residents will even benefit from new construction, since contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, invariably a large corporation.

In the beginning, Western Massachusetts residents will have high expectations of a thrilling new economic jolt, which will be followed by shock that expected profits don’t flow to the region (they flow to casino owners largely), leading to resentment and anger that the promised “new local economy” never arrives.

For casinos the long-term, permanent effects become clear when the casino opens. First, local small businesses close: restaurants, diners, cafes, small gift shops, small motels, bars. Not only do casinos have plenty of food, drink and gift items available in their buildings, they actively work to keep gamblers from leaving the premises. Casinos offer lots of entertainment and “comp” tickets to lure the public in, and there go local and regional theaters, small music venues, etc.

The most profound effects, however, are on family life. Casinos run on shift work, even if they aren’t open 24 hours a day. Young people or young families, most with no higher education credentials, take these jobs, and often both spouses work in casinos to afford a life style that a single casino wage earner can’t support.

In New Jersey I watched a small, residentially stable, somewhat struggling area, like Palmer turn into a bedroom community of shift working households with high transiency, huge increases in traffic, closed and shuttered local businesses, and households under stress. It was a sad place to live.